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North End resident describes ICE asking about Asian neighbors
Elizabeth Lugert-Thom, of St. Paul, warned people on social media last week that two men came to her door in the North End on Wednesday. One had a badge hanging around his neck and she could make out “HS” on it and may have said “Homeland” on it, leading her to believe it was a Homeland Security badge.
“They did not identify themselves,” she said Monday. “They just starting asking questions and showed me a picture and asked if I knew who this person was.” She didn’t and told them so.
“They said, ‘This is for your safety. We need to find this person,’” according to Lugert-Thom, who said she doesn’t know why they came to her home.
“They specifically asked me if I knew where the Hmong families lived on my street and in the neighborhood.”
Lugert-Thom responded, “I don’t know anything about that” and she said they then asked, “Well, what about the Asian families?” She also told them she didn’t know, so they would leave.
She said she posted about it on Facebook because “I was a bit shaken and a bit shocked of what I was asked to do.”
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City Council Member HwaJeong Kim, who is a volunteer with the Immigrant Defense Network and who represents Lugert-Thom’s ward, said she’s hearing frequently from neighborhood networks about people being taken into custody.
“They took someone walking on the sidewalk this morning in my ward before 9:30 this morning,” Kim said Monday. “… Rolled up, took them, gone.
“We already knew that they were doing it, and now they’re just not even hiding. … If you are Black, if you’re Brown, if you are Asian, Latina, even Indigenous, if you are just not white, at this point, you are a target.”
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